This game is not bad, actually.
For sword fighting use + on the numeric keypad to draw the sword, then keep smashing Enter to attack.
Purple potions allow you to pass gates.
And you need the skull's green eye gem to open the level exit door.
It has plenty of checkpoints throughout the level, so you don't have to restart the level over and over.
Has some PoP2 elements too, like the crushing wall.

[Edit: In level 2 - yeah, I actually made it there - it has a trap with an Indiana Jones-like rolling boulder too. You need to grab the ledge and wait for the ball to roll by, drink the potion, exit the screen, return to the screen with the boulder and have a second boulder push away the first. And when purple, after drinking a purple potion, flames cannot harm you. And if gates have nothing above them, he can climb over them.]

I've reached level 3.
In that level, after killing an enemy its head floats away, then later you fight that head.
Very difficult fight, didn't win yet...[Edit: It is possible to run past the head and lose only 1HP, but after killing a second guard, the second head follows you and kills you anyway. I'll need save states for this...]

Attached are also the level codes I got after levels 1 and 2.
No idea yet how to enter them in-game. Maybe that's only possible in a more complete (full) version of the game.

This is actually a big game with lots of different kinds of gameplay in it.
You can see in the slideshow (SHOW.EXE) that the player even gets a gun.
That slideshow also mentions Prince of Persia, by the way.

David, I guess maybe put all the "Runen (1996)" related posts in a separate thread?

The game is quite slow-paced (especially when climbing), so in DOSBox, you should configure a single key to the fast-forward function.
The default Alt+F12 is quite hard to press while playing, and if you press Alt while running, the "prince" will stop.

Climbing up or down requires too precise alignment.
Crouching pushes the kid back a bit, so if you repeat it, you will eventually be able to climb down.

You can drink potions with the down arrow. (Kinda like in some versions of PoP.)
The potions are quite big, bigger than the kid's head. I wonder how can he drink it all.
A difference from PoP is that they are corked (you can hear when the kid unplugs the cork), and they are in transparent glass.
And when he finished drinking, he throws the empty glass offscreen.

Norbert wrote:It has plenty of checkpoints throughout the level, so you don't have to restart the level over and over.

These checkpoints are invisible, like in PoP2.

Somehow the kid (re)starts the level a bit above the floor...

There are some signs in the game. You can read them with the up arrow (and some German knowledge ).

The game is full of climbing rods, both horizontal and vertical.
PoP did not have these, but for example Aladdin (DOS) has similar things.

The crusher wall is also on this level. It's near a sign that you can't even read because of this trap... But at least a checkpoint is near.
(In fact, if the crusher wasn't there, then you would be stuck there. There is no Ctrl+A in this game.)
This crusher is bloodier than the PoP2 version, you can see the kid being crushed. Eww...

And be careful, when blue, you can fall down there through a horizontal grate.
It's not always a good thing to be able to go through things...

Level 2:

This level has no enemies... instead it has some mind-boggling puzzles.

Norbert wrote:
In level 2 - yeah, I actually made it there - it has a trap with an Indiana Jones-like rolling boulder too.
You need to grab the ledge and wait for the ball to roll by, drink the potion, exit the screen, return to the screen with the boulder and have a second boulder push away the first.

Oh yeah. I found this out the hard way.
The second boulder will still be there, but you can at least climb over it.
Fun stuff: Go to the top-left room. You'll see the boulder sitting on the ledge, ready to fall when needed.

The single hint on this level is also about the boulders. And it rhymes:

Norbert wrote:And if gates have nothing above them, he can climb over them.

I found that out accidentally...
There are two adjacent grates in one room.
You need to use the blue potion for the first one, but climb the second.
If you climb the first, you fall down and die...
And you can't use the potion for the second, because you already used it for the first.

Somehow you can't *jump* through gates, even when blue.

There are some fires on this level.
They will burn you, unless you have drunk the blue potion before. (No, you can't pick the flame up even then. You're already blue anyway. )
This fire-walking won't use up your blue power, unlike the grates.
The first fire is constant.
The other two are timed. If you run straight from the left room, then they will go out exactly when you reach them. How convenient!

It seems that some blue potions come back when you come back to their room, but only if you're not blue.

There are some blue floors on this level. But they don't seem to do anything, or do they?

And just when you'd reach the end, there is that lightning that fries you if you touch it.
I was stumped at this part. I tried to jump to the magenta potion, but the kid either fell *by* the small platform and died, or he fell *onto* it and died.
I accidentally found a hint about what to do in the slideshow...

Level 3:

You can get four green potions before the first enemy, but that's not enough...

Norbert wrote:In that level, after killing an enemy its head floats away, then later you fight that head.

And this one was copied from the PoP2 flying heads.
Oddly enough, the head has *more* HPs than the "original" enemy!
Is this because "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"?

Norbert wrote:Very difficult fight, didn't win yet...

I couldn't complete level 3 yet.

Other:

Norbert wrote:
You can see in the slideshow (SHOW.EXE) that the player even gets a gun.

Another picture shows something oddly similar to PoP2 temple levels...
Looks like there will be "naked" skeletons (also copied from PoP2)... with a ray gun!?
And two doors labeled "G" and "L". Is that a teleport puzzle?

Norbert wrote:Maybe some of the files in share/ need to be moved into the root (main) directory.

They are just the shareware versions of those files that differ from the full version.

The full version can also be found on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/Runen
It's a self extracting LHA archive, but unfortunately it seems that its end is missing: I get a CRC Error in WH.MAC and some files are fully missing.
The game will start, though, but the background will be garbled.

[Edit: It is possible to run past the head and lose only 1HP, but after killing a second guard, the second head follows you and kills you anyway. I'll need save states for this...]

...you can just kill the first guard, run past its head, kill the second guard, run past its head.
Then you end up in the leftmost room, which has a potion in its top-left.
The problem is that you cannot drink the potion without first killing the second head, because it follows you.
And the main problem with the heads is that they attack not just from the front but also the character's back.
There are enough life potions in the level to potentially kill the heads if there was a quick way to turn around.
But the only way I've found was to put away the sword, turn around and... then you're already too late.
Even with (unstable, unfortunately) save states (using ykhwong's DOSBox) I couldn't finish the section.

Then you end up in the leftmost room, which has a potion in its top-left.
The problem is that you cannot drink the potion without first killing the second head, because it follows you.
And the main problem with the heads is that they attack not just from the front but also the character's back.

I finally found out how to get rid of the second head!
(I also needed save states for this.)

You have to go to the left side of the room, and attack every time the head flies past the left post of the fence.
Like this:

attack_now.png (10.59 KiB) Viewed 80 times

I have lost one HP while going there.
If you do this right, you won't lose any more hit points, and you will still have one HP after you cross the first head when going back.
The rest of the level is quite straightforward.
There are two more guards, and they too will lose their heads, but at least those heads won't attack... Whew!

Here is the full map of level 3:

There is one room I couldn't reach.
On its right side, there is a climbing rod.
You can climb up onto the leftmost block with a move not in PoP (jump at the wall), but the rod is just too far from it.

On this level, the (skeleton) guards wield spears, and some walls also shoot spears at you.
(One spear shoots from behind a guard. Of course the guard won't get hurt...)
Also beware the falling rocks!

In the bottom right room there is a logical puzzle with three golden heads.
(They are "the heads of insight", as the manual and the first sign say.)
You have to arrange their red and green crystal eyes in a certain way.
(The second sign says something about this.)
As a hint, each head will smile if it likes the current state of its eyes.
And you also have solve the puzzle fast, because there's a fire slowly coming from the right towards you!

Less interesting things:
There is a gate that closes itself behind you. You don't have to go back anyway.
In the room with the sun (or moon?) you can see the flying bird/bat from level 1 again.

This is a snowy mountain. Despite this, skeletons are "naked".
But more importantly, they have ray guns!
Even if you manage to go near the skeletons, you just can't hurt them with your sword.
The manual says that you have to take the ray gun away from one of them. But how?...

There are also some impassable ice blocks on the level. (The game seems to slow down in those rooms.)
I guess you can melt them with the ray gun. Once you get it, that is.
I don't see any other way out...